Good morning and welcome to today's lesson.

Thank you so much for joining me.

My name is Miss Halliday and I'll be your teacher for today.

I can't wait to see all the incredible ideas that you come up with, so let's get started.

So today's lesson is called Stave 4: Scrooge's fears.

And by the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to explain how Scrooge's fears have changed throughout the novella and the impact of that on our understanding of him as a character.

Here are some key words that you'll need for today's lesson.

We've got to abandon, which means to leave a person behind, usually forever.

We've got vulnerability, which means to be able to be easily hurt or attacked either physically or emotionally.

We've got to advocate, which means if you advocate for something, you're promoting it.

We've also got the word legacy, which means the long impact of a person's life.

It's what they leave behind usually after they die.

And finally, we've got the word stoic.

Now that means if somebody's stoic, it means that they're able to endure hardship without showing it.

So basically not showing their emotions.

These are all key words that you'll need for today's lesson, and I'll draw attention to them as we go through the learning.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

We're gonna start by looking at Scrooge's fears in staves one to three before moving on to Scrooge's fears in stave four, and drawing some comparisons between Scrooge's fears across the novella.

So let's start first with Scrooge's fears in staves one to three.

We're going to begin with a little bit of a discussion.

First of all, I'd like you to consider, well actually what is fear? What does it look like? What does it mean? Can you think of any synonyms for the word fear? So any words that mean the same thing.

And finally, what impact can fear have on a person's life? So I'm gonna invite you now to pause the video while you have those discussions and before we share some quick ideas.

Fantastic discussions.

And I heard some people there saying that fear is a response to physical and emotional danger, and it can be one of the most destructive human emotions.

And unfortunately, we see examples of how fear can be really destructive in "A Christmas Carol." Now often fear can be rooted in childhood experiences and in psychology there's lots of links between fears that adults have and experiences that they had in their childhoods that might have catalysed some of those fears.

Now again, I'd like you to discuss, well, what was Scrooge's childhood like? And therefore, what fears do you think Scrooge might have developed? What was Dickens's childhood like? And finally, what were Dickens's fears about society? So again, I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you discuss the four questions on screen now.

Some really fantastic discussions there, well done.

So let's see what you could have said.

So first of all, as Aisha points out, we know from stave two that Scrooge was quite a neglected and abandoned child and that that was at the hands of his father and his friends.

Now, if you remember, we see young Scrooge on his own reading by the fire, having been neglected by his friends at boarding school.

We also learned that Scrooge and his father didn't have the best relationship, and that his father often left him at boarding school during the summer holidays, and that made Scrooge quite a lonely and isolated child.

Now again, Andeep wanted to build on that idea and he said that because of those experiences, Scrooge might have developed a fear of abandonment and caused him to repress his emotions, so to push his emotions down and ignore them.

Jacob said Dickens grew up in poverty.

His father went to debtors' prison.

And if you remember, that happened when Dickens was just 12.

That's a very, very young age to have such a traumatic event happened to you.

And Jun makes a link there between Dickens' childhood and Dickens' fears because Dickens feared that children who faced injustice would become resentful adults and actually Dickens himself knew better than anyone what it was like to have a challenging and difficult childhood.

Okay, so it would make sense that Dickens would be concerned for the welfare of other adults as a result of a traumatic or unstable childhood.

So well done if you've got any of those ideas, excellent work.

So let's have another discussion.

And this time we're going to focus our discussion on this idea of abandonment.

So this idea of being left alone and isolated away from other people or rejected in some way.

And I'd like you to think, well, how might a fear of abandonment be driving Scrooge's behaviour in stave one? And secondly, I'd like you to see if you can give any really specific examples of where we see behaviour from Scrooge in stave one that could be indicative of a fear of abandonment.

So here's an example, so you can see what kind of thing I'm looking for.

So for example, Scrooge may not mourn Marley's death, which we see in stave one because Scrooge just carried on with his life as usual, and this might be because he is become used to being abandoned.

Okay, so maybe Scrooge can't mourn Marley's death because he actually feels like it's just another instance of him being abandoned and perhaps he's taught himself to be different to this kind of abandonment and perceived rejection.

So what I'd like you to do now is pause the video while you discuss the two questions on screen.

So off you go.

Some really fantastic discussions there and massive well done.

And I heard some absolutely fantastic ideas.

Here's some of the things you might have said.

So again, back to our fantastic Oak students here.

So Aisha stated, Scrooge warned "all human sympathy to keep its distance" and this way he cannot be abandoned.

So here I feel that Aisha is kind of suggesting that this is a protection tactic and that Scrooge, you know, doesn't engage in human connections because he feels that he's going to be abandoned in some way, so he kind of thinks, "Well, what's the point in me engaging with other people because everybody leaves me on my own." Okay, so really perceptive idea there from Aisha.

Andeep also had a great idea, and this was that Scrooge perhaps rejects his nephew, Fred, maybe because he's a reminder of the pain of losing his sister little Fan.

Again, we know that Scrooge lost his sister when she was an adult after she'd given birth to Fred.

And again, that must have been such a painful time for Scrooge and perhaps Fred and his presence around Scrooge reminds him of that really painful time that he went through in his life.

So perhaps he can't face Fred, and that might be a more empathetic kind of interpretation of the way that Scrooge treats Fred, but it's valid and I really like this idea from Andeep.

Jacob adds that Scrooge berates the caroler boy in stave one, if you remember, he threatens him with a ruler and is really aggressive.

And Jacob feels that perhaps this is because the caroler boy reminds him of his younger self.

So in threatening the caroler boy and rejecting this caroler boy, perhaps Scrooge is kind of rejecting the trauma of his childhood that he went through.

And the fact that, you know, these memories for Scrooge as a child are really painful and he doesn't like being confronted with any reminders of that time in his life.

And finally, Jun adds that perhaps Scrooge is harsh to Bob because he is taught himself not to get close to other people.

So quite similar idea there to Aisha, this idea that, you know, Scrooge's kind of antisocial behaviour might be some kind of protection method against being rejected or abandoned again.

Now all of these are very empathetic responses to Scrooge's behaviour, and I really like that because I do think that Scrooge can definitely be viewed as an empathetic character.

And I personally do feel sorry for Scrooge because I don't think anybody would necessarily choose to live their life the way that he does.

I think that perhaps Scrooge just feels that he didn't have a choice and that it then became learned behaviour to him.

So thank you to our Oak students for their fantastic ideas and well done to those of you who are watching this, who also came up with some fantastic ideas, really impressed there, well done.

Now I'd like you to think, well, we've talked about Scrooge's potential fear of abandonment, but what do you think Scrooge's other fear might be? And here's a little hint, we actually discover that Scrooge has this fear in stave two.

So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you consider for a moment what you think Scrooge's other fear might be.

Off you go.

Fantastic discussions and really well done if you identified or you remembered that actually we learn in stave two that Scrooge has this massive fear of poverty and that's probably his biggest fear that we see in the novella.

So what I've done here is I've popped a section of the text on screen for you along with a question.

So I'll read the section of text if you follow along.

This is a conversation between Scrooge and Belle in stave two, where Belle is ending their engagement.

Scrooge says, "There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!" "You fear the world too much," she answered, gently, ".

I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you.

Have I not?" "What then?" he retorted, "Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I'm not changed towards you." So what I'd like you to do now is now that we've read that extract, I'd like you to discuss, well how do we feel for Scrooge here? Can we understand or empathise with his fear? So again, I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you discuss those questions now.

Some fantastic discussions, really well done, some really incredible ideas there.

So let's have a look at some of the ideas you might have got.

So first of all, we recognise from Scrooge's statement that "there is nothing on which this is so hard as poverty" that actually Scrooge's deep-rooted fear of poverty is what drives his behaviour in stave one.

And that's a really sad realisation.

And this is kind of why I was saying I feel sorry, so sorry for Scrooge because I think when you've got a fear that is that strong and that potent, you can't help but let it overtake your emotions and let it drive your behaviour.

And therefore, I do think that Scrooge isn't 100% responsible for his behaviour.

I think that he's grown up in a society where as a very young child, he's observed that injustice and unfairness of that society and it's become instilled in him that he doesn't want to experience maybe some of the things that he's witnessed around him growing up as a child.

So I do feel quite sorry for Scrooge here, especially the more we start to understand how his childhood fears manifest in his adult life and drive his behaviour.

I think there is a much more sympathetic reading of Scrooge to be done here.

Now bearing that in mind on this idea of kind of empathy for Scrooge, I'd like you to discuss, well why does Dickens show us that fear of poverty can drive this kind of greed and avarice? What is Dickens trying to show us here? So again, I'm gonna invite you to pause the video while you discuss that question with the people around you.

Off you go.

Again, some really interesting ideas there.

And this is the one that I heard that I liked the best.

So Dickens shows us that a lack of charity makes poverty worse.

Now, a fear of poverty prevents people from being charitable because they don't want to part with their precious money.

Because they feel that if they part with their money, they could potentially end up in the same situation as the people that they're actually trying to help.

And therefore, Dickens is showing us that poverty and fear of poverty is what makes people selfish and greedy.

Okay because they're looking at other people who are impoverished and they're thinking, "I really don't want that to be me." And therefore they do everything possible to hoard their wealth, much like Scrooge in stave one, and therefore that exacerbates the problem of poverty because they stop being charitable, they stop giving money away, okay, their compassion starts to dwindle because they're so concerned about themselves.

So Dickens is therefore showing us the necessity for an equal society because then we wouldn't have the problem of poverty at all.

So let's check for understanding.

Which of the following quotations best shows us that Scrooge's fear is what drives his behaviour? Is it A, ".

decrease the surplus population." B, "A golden idol.

has displaced me.

." Or C, "You fear the world too much." So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you make your choice.

And well done if you identify that it is in fact C, excellent work.

So this quotation from Belle really shows us, you know what, how Scrooge's fears are driving his behaviour.

'cause she's basically saying to him, you've got so much fear that it's you're not a nice person anymore and that's why she doesn't want to be with him.

So a sad moment for Scrooge, Belle, and also for us as a reader, as we see here, the corruptive nature of fear.

Again, let's have another discussion.

We love discussions here.

Okay, so what else is it that Scrooge fears in staves one to three? There's one more thing that he really, you know, has a bit of a anxiety or concern about.

And I'd like you to think, well, what do you think it might be? So again, I'm going to invite you to pause the video while you have a think.

Excellent discussions.

Now, you might have identified correctly that actually Scrooge fears the ghosts, okay? He's very, very frightened of Marley's ghost particularly, and he's so frightened of the scenes that the Ghost of Christmas Past shows him that he actually tries to extinguish its light with its cap.

So we're going to have a look at that moment now in the novella.

And I'd like you to think as we're reading, well why does he fail the ghosts? Okay and I'd like you to use the extract below to help you think about that.

So I'll read it to you, you follow along.

"Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "Remove me from this place." "I told you these were the shadows of things that have been," said the Ghost.

"They are what they are, do not blame me!" "Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed, "I cannot bear it! Haunt me no longer!" Scrooge sees the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action, pressed it down upon the spirit's head." So as we can see that a really telling moment in the novella, now I'd like you to pause the video and consider the question above.

So why is it that he fears the ghosts so much? And remember to use the extract to help you inform your opinion.

So off you go.

Fantastic work.

So again, let's have a look at some of our Oak students' ideas and you can compare the contents of your discussion to the contents of their discussion.

So let's start with Aisha first.

Aisha states, "Scrooge fears his past.

It is incredibly painful for him and he hates the vulnerability he feels." So that vulnerability, remember it's one of our key words and it's that idea of feeling kind of open and exposed emotionally.

And Andeep says, "Scrooge fears the spirit's lessons, he knows he will be held accountable for his actions." So Andeep and Aisha, they're both suggesting that it's not necessarily the spirits themselves that Scrooge fears, but more what they're going to show him and what they're going to teach him, and how they might respond to him as well because of his immorality and avarice.

And Jacob states, "Scrooge fears ending up with the same fate as Marley." Again, I think a perfectly understandable fear, given that Scrooge has actually encountered Marley at this point and has seen kind of the punishment that he's been given for his actions in life.

And finally, Jun states "Scrooge fears emotions.

He has repressed emotion for so long and he's actually frightened to feel again." And I really like this idea from Jun here because he's absolutely right.

Scrooge is terrified of his own emotions.

So some really fantastic ideas there and well done if you've got anything similar.

So onto our first task of the lesson.

Now I'd like you to think, well, how do Scrooge's fears allow Dickens to convey his message of kindness and social responsibility? So what I've done here is given you a little bit of help in your considerations in the form of this table.

You are welcome.

On the left-hand side, we have got Scrooge's fears that we have just discussed.

So Scrooge's fear of abandonment, Scrooge's fear of poverty, and Scrooge's fear of that emotional vulnerability.

On the right-hand side, we have got some context about Dickens, and what he thought, and the experiences that he had in his life.

Now I would like you to use the context provided to explain how Scrooge through his fears exemplifies Dickens's fears for society.

Now this is a hard task because what you've got to do, you've got to look at the context about Dickens and think, well what are Dickens's fears for society? And then you've got to think, well, how does he show those through the character of Scrooge and his fears? So we're not only looking at Scrooge's fears, but also Dickens's fears because the two are actually very linked with one another.

And what you are doing is thinking about, well, what is the link there between Scrooge's fears and Dickens's fears? So what I'm going to do now is invite you to pause the video while you have a go at this activity.

I cannot wait to see what you come up with.

So off you go, give it your all.

Some fantastic effort there.

So let's start with the first of Scrooge's fears and it's his fear of abandonment.

And we're told here that Dickens felt that children needed to have a carefree and innocent childhood, otherwise they would grow up to become resentful adults.

Now, in terms of how this links to Scrooge's fear, well Scrooge's fear of abandonment and the behaviour that these fears have encouraged, exemplified Dickens's fears for society that children who face injustice in their childhoods grow up to become resentful adults.

Unloved or neglected children, like ignorance and Want like young Scrooge, grow up to turn their backs on society.

So in showing us the impact of childhood neglect, Dickens emphasises the importance of showing children love and kindness, so that they become kind-natured and empathetic adults, who are likely to be charitable and socially responsible.

So basically Dickens is here saying, if we want a nice society, we need to raise nice children, and we need to show them the love and support that they need in order to become those nice children.

Now, in terms of Scrooge's fear of poverty, and the fact that Dickens experienced poverty firsthand, and saw how it corrupted people, well you might have made the connection that through Scrooge's fear of poverty, we see how punishing life was for impoverished Victorian citizens.

Dickens experienced poverty firsthand, and worried that the amount of inequality in society would drive people, particularly those without money into immorality and criminality.

Not only this, but the injustice in society created deep-rooted inter-class resentment, which caused a degeneration of morality.

Now that's a complex idea, so I'm just gonna explain that a little bit.

So it's this idea that because there's so much inequality, lots of people, particularly those without money, started to just think, well, you know what? Life's not fair.

And therefore if life isn't fair for me, I don't care whether life's fair for the people above me.

So I'm going to start, you know, robbing them, stealing from them, and behaving in an immoral way because I've been dealt a rubbish hand, and therefore what I'm doing is necessary in order for me to survive, so it's not really wrong.

So this idea of a degeneration of morality is basically the concept that if somebody's not treated fairly, their perception of what is right and wrong becomes skewed and they'll start to behave immorally.

Just to finish that off, Dickens, therefore, advocates, so promotes, charity as a means of tackling poverty and preventing more children and adults from having to resort to criminality to survive.

So Dickens is saying, we need to be more charitable to help these people that end up becoming immoral, and who are, you know, going to be the undoing of society if we don't help them out.

So instead of treating them with disdain, we need to treat them with empathy and kindness.

And finally, in terms of Scrooge's fear of emotional vulnerability, well, Dickens saw how the upper and middle classes treated the lower classes, the lack of charity, their disgust towards them, and he was horrified by this.

Now the Victorians were very stoic, so they didn't express their emotions outwardly because it was very kind of condemned and judged and they looked judgmentally upon those who displayed their emotions.

Dickens criticises this mindset by suggesting that this stoicism led to a lack of empathy for others.

In the novella, Dickens, harshly criticises the middle and upper classes for their willful ignorance to the plight of the poor.

Dickens celebrates characters like Fezziwig, Fred, and Bob for their emotional vulnerability, so their ability to show their emotions, promoting a more empathetic and human approach to dealing with others.

Perhaps he was hoping that this might, in turn, make wealthier Victorian citizens more likely to want to help the poor.

So Dickens is kind of saying, we need to break down this societal expectation that people shouldn't be showing emotions because it's making people cold-hearted and callous and we need to realise that actually showing emotions is a really positive thing and it leads to people being more kind, moral and generous.

So we need to encourage that behaviour and not condemn it.

So well done if you've got any of those ideas.

Excellent work.

So onto the second part of our lesson now, where we're going to look at Scrooge's fear in stave four and start to draw some comparisons between Scrooge's fears in staves one to three and his fears in this stave here.

So let's get started.

We're going to begin by reading an extract from the text.

So I'll read it, you follow along.

This is taken from the end of Stave four when Scrooge realises that the anonymous dead man that he's been seeing discussions about is actually him and he sees his gravestone.

"Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went, and following the finger read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE.

"Am I that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried, upon his knees.

The finger pointed from the grave to him and back again.

"No, Spirit! Oh no, no!" The finger was still there.

"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at his robe, "Hear me! I'm not the man I was.

I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse.

Why show me this, if I am past all hope! Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me.

Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life! I will honour Christmas in my heart.

Oh, tell me, I may sponge away the writing on this stone!" Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress.

It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost." A really significant moment there from the novella.

And what I'd like you to do is use that significant moment to discuss what is Scrooge truly afraid of here? Is it the spirit's appearance? Is it the spirit's silence? The gravestone being his? His death? The lack of mourners that he sees? Or is it the lack of legacy? So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you consider, well what are Scrooge's true fears here? So off you go.

Fantastic work.

And here's some ideas you might have got.

So Aisha states, "I think Scrooge is frightened of death because he is horrified by the gravestone." But here Izzy states, "It's not death itself that Scrooge is frightened of.

He's been surrounded by death his whole life." And Andeep replies, "Scrooge's true fear is a lack of legacy he will leave behind him.

He's frightened, not because he will die, he knows dying is a natural part of being human, but because he has realised that once he has gone, there will be no trace of him left on earth because he has not contributed anything.

He has not left a legacy." And Aisha replies really interestingly, "I don't think Stave one Scrooge would've cared about that at all." And that's a really interesting point from both Andeep and Aisha.

So before we consider that a little bit more, I'd like to check your understanding.

What is Scrooge's greatest fear in Stave four? I'm going to give you a moment to read through the answer options and choose the one that you think represents Scrooge's greatest fear in Stave four, so off you go.

And well done if you selected D as the answer, you are absolutely right.

Scrooge's greatest fear in Stave four is that he's not left a positive legacy behind and that, therefore, nobody will care that he's died.

He hasn't used his life to the full, well done.

So onto our last task of the lesson where we're going to consider and deepen Aisha's idea a little bit more.

Scrooge's transformation is most apparent in his fears.

The change in Scrooge's fears across the course of the novella indicates his moral growth.

What I'd like you to do is use the discussion grid to complete the following two tasks.

First of all, I'd like you to explain how Scrooge's fears have changed over the course of the novella.

And then I'd like you to think, well, to what extent do you agree with the statement above? And I'd like you to justify your answer with examples from the novella.

So here's the discussion grid that I was just referring to.

So you'll notice it has three columns.

One column will help you to draw comparisons between Scrooge's fears in staves one and four.

And one will help you to develop those ideas further and expand on them before drawing conclusions using the third column of the discussion grid.

So I'm going to invite you now to pause the video while you use the discussion grid to complete the two tasks on screen.

Off you go.

Fantastic work.

Really impressed with your ideas and how well you were drawing comparisons between Scrooge's fears across the novella.

So here's what you could have said.

Although Scrooge's fears early on in the novella appear to be a fear of abandonment, fear of poverty, and a fear of emotional vulnerability, we see that by the end of Stave four, his greatest fear becomes a fear of not leaving a positive legacy, not being remembered, and not leaving a trace, a connection, or a positive memory behind when he passes.

Now in terms of the second task, you might have actually agreed with the statement that Scrooge's transformation is most noticeable in his fears and you might have justified it by saying that Scrooge's fears in the beginning of the novella motivate his immoral and cruel behaviour, whereas his fear of not leaving a positive legacy in stave four motivate his changed and moral behaviour to come.

Arguably, so debatably, it is fear that drives Scrooge's transformation.

Scrooge represents the middle and upper classes in Victorian society, and, therefore, Scrooge's fears are likely the fears of the comfortable Victorian population.

So this idea that actually Scrooge's fears in the novella are representative of a large amount of the population's fears in Victorian society.

So consequently by interrogating Scrooge's fears and highlighting how his behaviour actually exacerbates some of these fears, Dickens is encouraging the Victorian population to follow suit and also change and transform.

So to summarise the learning from today, first of all, in Stave two, we learned that Scrooge's miserly behaviour in Stave one may be motivated by a fear of abandonment, a fear of poverty, and a fear of emotional vulnerability.

Scrooge's fears and the behaviour that these fears have encouraged exemplify Dickens fears for society that children who face injustice in their childhoods grow up to become resentful adult.

Through Scrooge's fear of poverty, we see how punishing life was for impoverished Victorian citizens and Dickens criticises Victorian stoicism by suggesting that it led to a lack of empathy for other people, which actually exacerbated the problem of poverty.

And finally, by the end of day four, Scrooge's true fear is a lack of legacy that he will leave behind him because he is realised that once he has gone, there will be no trace left of him left on earth because he has not contributed a single thing to society.

So there's our summary for today.

I'd like to thank you for coming and I've really appreciated all of your input and suggestions in today's lesson.

Thank you very much, I look forward to seeing you next time and see you later.